W poszukiwaniu oblicza Bożego (palamickie rozróżnienie istoty i energii w Bogu)

Abstract

The aim of the present article is an attempt to show the positive values of Palamas’s teaching about the inaccessible energies acting in the world, on the basis of an analysis of one of the main works by Grzegorz Pailamais – Triads in defense of hesichasts. Basing on the conducted analyses it can be concluded, that the differentiation between the essence and energy in God is not a novum introduced in theology by Palamas. The foundations of this idea should be looked for in the works of the Fathers of the Church. Palatmas’s contribution consists in an original development and in the incorporation of the synthesis of intuitions worked out by him, which be had found in the earlier theological tradition, into the whole of the problem. The aim of this differentiation was his eagerness to popularize the facts from the revelation about a God completely inaccessible and acting in the world. Energies are exactly the actions of the inaccessible in his mystery God, directed towards creatures and making their contadt with the Creator possible. God exceeds all the definitions and notions With which we try to define Him to such a degree that all the names or terms we give to Him apply not to mystery He constitutes in Himself, but just to His energies. Although the actions of God’s powers are perceived by man as manifold, they should be understood first of all as one personal power springing from God’s being and spreading in various ways. Palamas’s differentiation is a valuable theological postulate. It allows one to avoid the extremes to which the methods used in theology and borrowed from essentialistic philosophy are exposed. The positive contribution of Palamas to the theological output of the Eastern Church is an attempt to defend the realism of the connections between man and God without running into pantheism. Energies are only God’s „face turned towards the world”, otherwise God being in accessible in his deepest essence for the man.